The story of the great economic meltdown of 2008 — and perhaps 2009 — has dominated headlines and intensified the debate over the role of government in the economy.

It has been no less a focus at the Kellogg School, where professors and visiting speakers have probed the dimensions of the crisis in class, before the media and in settings such as the school's Zell Center for Risk Research. Throughout this issue of Kellogg World, you'll read about the Kellogg thought leaders who are spearheading efforts to understand the current downturn, and sharing guidance on how to avert the next one.

The global scale of this once-in-a-generation crisis will require broad-based international business skills to return the economy to sound footing. "Global Perspective," our cover story, offers an overview of what Kellogg is doing in this regard. The school's international focus is also reflected in the series of events Kellogg hosted around the world this fall and winter to mark the school's 100th birthday. Faculty, alumni and Kellogg School friends gathered in Miami, Zurich, New York and Shanghai to celebrate the Kellogg Centennial and take stock of the business realities of today ("A gathering of great minds").

The historic nature of the crisis has rewritten some of the rules of business and will be analyzed for years to come. It also offers a unique, if challenging, chance to renew and reflect, as Kellogg School Dean Dipak Jain notes in an in-depth interview.

"What would compound the difficulties would be for us to ignore the opportunity to understand how we arrived at this point, and what we might do differently to avoid a similar fate in years to come," Jain says. The Kellogg community is seizing that opportunity right now.